[17376] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Digital signatures have a big problem with meaning
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ben Laurie)
Tue Jun 7 18:47:23 2005
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 13:35:16 +0100
From: Ben Laurie <ben@algroup.co.uk>
To: Ian G <iang@systemics.com>
Cc: dan@geer.org, cryptography@metzdowd.com
In-Reply-To: <200506011850.10043.iang@systemics.com>
Ian G wrote:
> On Wednesday 01 June 2005 15:07, dan@geer.org wrote:
>
>>Ian G writes:
>> | In the end, the digital signature was just crypto
>> | candy...
>>
>>On the one hand a digital signature should matter more
>>the bigger the transaction that it protects. On the
>>other hand, the bigger the transaction the lower the
>>probability that it is between strangers who have no
>>other leverage for recourse.
>
>
> Yes, indeed! The thing about a signature is that
> *it* itself - the mark on paper or the digital result
> of some formula - isn't the essence of signing.
>
> The essence of the process is something that
> lawyers call "intent" (I'm definately not clear on
> these words so if there are any real lawyers in
> the house...). And, when the dispute comes to
> court, the process is not one of "proving the
> signature" but of showing intent.
Perhaps this is a good moment to remind people of my paper "Signatures:
an Interface between Law and Technology" (written with Nicholas Bohm, a
lawyer) which discusses this and other issues.
http://www.apache-ssl.org/tech-legal.pdf
Cheers,
Ben.
--
http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html http://www.thebunker.net/
"There is no limit to what a man can do or how far he can go if he
doesn't mind who gets the credit." - Robert Woodruff
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